Boulder's existing medical marijuana dispensaries will have the option to run recreational and medical businesses under the same roof, but new marijuana businesses that come into the market next year will have to choose.

However, opting for a simple conversion to retail sales and leaving behind the medical model likely will result in faster approval, city officials said.

It's still not clear exactly when Boulder residents will be able to walk into a store and buy marijuana like any other product. However, it could be early next year and not in the summer as officials had anticipated.

The Boulder City Council approved a series of changes Tuesday to a proposed ordinance regulating retail marijuana sales that relaxed requirements for dispensaries currently operating in the city.

Nearly all of Boulder's existing medical marijuana businesses will be able to convert to retail operations in their current locations, even if those locations wouldn't meet new city rules for recreational marijuana shops. The one exception is a single dispensary in a mixed-use building that includes residential.

They will also have the option of having both a medical and a recreational business in the same building with a shared lobby where IDs could be checked but separate entrances.

Assistant Senior City Attorney Kathy Haddock said the city doesn't have a date yet to begin accepting applications for conversions, but once they do, they could be processed as quickly as renewal requests -- in about a week, if nothing else about the business has changed.

Requests for co-location will be more complicated because they will require building permits and renovations.

Medical marijuana can be sold to patients 18 and older who have a doctor's recommendation. Patients can have up to 2 ounces at a time. Regular sales tax applies to medical marijuana, but new, higher sales and excise taxes on the ballot this November would not.

Recreational marijuana can be sold to customers 21 and older, and those customers are limited to 1 ounce. Recreational marijuana would be taxed at the higher rate if voters approve the state and local tax measures.

Boulder officials had raised the possibility of not allowing conversions that don't meet new requirements, which would have meant dispensaries would have to remain as medical businesses or move. They also had concerns about enforcing the different requirements if medical and retail sales could be made in the same shop.

City Council members said they wanted to protect businesses that had been good operators and that had invested hundreds of thousands of dollars complying with city requirements.

New recreational pot shops will not be able to locate within 1,000 feet of schools, daycare centers and drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers. Grow operations and infused product manufacturers, which are not open to customers, cannot be within 500 feet.

Business owners and industry representatives said Boulder should allow co-location so that they don't have to choose between retail and medical customers.

"This will leave existing medical centers to choose one model or another, limiting their growth potential and creating an unmet demand that will be filled with product coming in from Denver," said Roseleena Pantius of the Dandelion dispensary.

Boulder Mayor Matt Appelbaum proposed allowing the 25 existing medical dispensaries to run dual businesses, with a shared lobby where IDs could be checked and then separate entrances to the medical and retail sides of the business. That proposal was supported by most council members, though they did not hold a formal vote.

Appelbaum said new entrants into the marijuana marketplace would have the advantage of knowing all the pros and cons and the regulatory landscape and could make an informed choice between one or the other business model.

The City Council also supported not accepting new medical marijuana license applications and directed city staff to prioritize the processing of conversion requests from medical businesses that are currently in operation, provided they have the same ownership structure and do not require new background checks.

They said their goal is to issue retail marijuana business licenses as soon as practically feasible in 2014.

The entire package will come back for another public hearing and a vote on Tuesday, the last meeting of this session of the Boulder City Council.

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